That’s really a boring title for this article, but the topic becomes more interesting as you learn the details. That’s what I found out when I attended the Penfield School District’s Community Meeting on the school budget. It took place on February 2nd at the Penfield High School library.

Superintendent John Carlevatti on the left and Assistant Superintendent Mark Sansouci talk about the school budget.

“One of our goals tonight,” said Mark Sansouci, Assistant Superintendent for Business, ” is EDUCATION: To explain to you what it is that we’re facing…where we are right now and what the challenges are as we begin to go forward. I don’t think anyone at this point is pretending that there is an easy answer.”

One of the challenges was dramatically described in a report by NY State Comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli as THE CLIFF. The Federal government provided NY State with $31 million in stimulus funds for 2009 and 2010. When 2011 comes around, there will be no more stimulus money and NY State is unlikely to come up with a replacement, especially since we’re in a $7.4 billion deficit. This is THE CLIFF.

John Carlevatti explains the 2009-2010 budget for the school district.

“Clearly, school districts need to begin planning now for the difficult budget pressures in 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 when the stimulus CLIFF hits,” wrote the Comptroller. “To backfill the stimulus funds that disappear in 2011-2012 and meet the state’s commitment to school aid, $4.1 billion will be needed over three years which is a very unlikely scenario, given the State’s fiscal situation. That amounts to a gap of at least $2.0 billion in 2011-2012 which means that average districts would have to raise property taxes by about 7.7% or cut costs by as much as 3.2% in order to make up the difference.”

Penfield Superintendent of Schools, John D. Carlevatti, wrote this: “It is clear that state aid will not increase in the future and we will again be faced with making some tough budget decisions.” He went on to state that he will be working with the new Budget Advisory Committee and with the community to make his way through this challenging process. The “Conversation of Education:Budget” meeting was an example of this interaction with Penfield’s residents.

Some very knowledgeable people made some important contributions to Mark Sansouci at the meeting.

Some items that must be looked at:
* Class size. Classroom staffing levels will be closely monitored with secondary classes with fewer than 15 students requiring Board approval.
* Staffing (instruction). A decline of 83 students will affect staffing levels. Attrition through staff retirements will be one of the tools for staff reduction.
* Materials and supplies. Appropriations for supplies, equipment and travel will decrease by 5%.
* Textbooks and library resources.
* Operations and maintenance. All funding will be closely monitored and prioritized based on how the funds contribute to safety and educational objectives.
* Transportation. The Pupil Transportation Department will seek operational efficiencies while providing required levels of service.
* Compensation and benefits to comply with bargaining agreements.

Assistant Superintendent, Mark Sansouci, explained that the Penfield School District (which actually encompasses students from six neighboring towns) has a budget totalling $82,034,173 which breaks out into 73% for programs (teaching the kids), 16% for capital and 11% for administrative costs. The
$82,034,173 comes from 72% taxes, 3% other local revenues and 25% state aid. The state aid portion of this is obviously the problem. There is no doubt that the 25% contribution to the budget will be reduced once THE CLIFF is reached when the Federal stimulus money is used up.

“Budget development must reflect current realities,” states the Penfield Board of Education. “We must balance the needs of all students while maintaining programs and facilities in addition to minimizing the impact on the taxpayers.”

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Lou Singer has been blogging about Penfield life since January 2009. Readers may recognize Singer's name from his numerous cartoons published on the Democrat and Chronicle's opinion pages over the years. Singer, of Penfield, attended New York University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in science with a minor in journalism. In 2000, he earned a master's degree in liberal studies from SUNY Brockport.
He worked for 10 years at Western Electric (part of AT&T) as an equipment engineer (designing and installing telephone equipment), three years at Lightolier as a Technical Writer and Illustrator and 33 years at Xerox as a senior technical writer and editor. He was responsible for writing training materials, service manuals and operator instructions plus a quarterly technical magazine for Xerox Service Engineers around the world.